The Yellow Wallpaper Fanfic by YZ
by yzfanfic
Summary: This is my Fanfiction of the story "The Yellow Wallpaper", originally written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.


It had been a week since Charlotte was confined in that little room in the mansion. Without the freedom to get out, and having no people to hang out, she became more and more bored and frustrated day after day. Her appetite was getting worse, and she found it harder and harder to fall asleep at night. She became more hysterias. During the day, when her husband John was not in the house, she pounded the walls and the bars on the windows with her fists as hard as she could, but there was no way to get out. When John returned, she became quiet and calm out of the fear that John would lock her even longer in that unpleasant room. However, she never gave up the desire of getting out and running into freedom. She gradually calmed down, and started to brainstorm escape strategies.

Probably it had been a long day at work for John, he was so tired tonight that he went to bed right after dinner, and leaving Charlotte alone in her locked up chamber. Charlotte was happy that she got more time tonight to examine the room and try to find any breakable spots of the room. The first things that drew her attention were the bars on the window. She walked towards the window, and looked down outside the window. It seemed like it was roughly 12 feet above the ground. The best part is that it was a garden down there with tall grass, which meant it she managed to get out and jump, she would have a fairly soft landing. There was also the beddings to take advantage of, which could be tied to one of the bars, and be used as a rope to climb down as far as possible, then jump onto the grass. There would be no injury at all, and she could just run away immediately! While fantasizing this scheme, her heart already felt being outside, running with the squirrels, breathing the air, and soaking the sunlight in the free world. She would go find her best friends, telling them what she experienced this summer. She would go to the police to report this lock-down incident, and helping authority track down other similar incidents elsewhere and bring more victims to freedom. She was so ambitious that she would also found a foundation to promote rights and equality. It had been an hour since this escape idea came to Charlotte's mind, and she just realized that breaking the bars was harder than she thought. She had no saw-like tools to cut it. There was nobody there to help her. She was all on her own. The only way she could seek help was to spend a lot of time looking out of the window and seeking help from people walking by. However, that annoying lady Jennie always stayed in the house. Any noise from Charlotte's room would trigger Jennie's suspicion. The garden between her room and the sidewalk was pretty large, even if she tried to yell, people could barely hear, which would only alert Jennie immediately. After examining this window and bars for a couple of hours, Charlotte gave up this idea immediately, but the strong desire for freedom and the ambition that came to her mind an hour earlier gave her sheer determination to get out despite of the challenges and frustration.

Whenever she saw her husband, she pretended to be very happy that she was recovering from mental depression, and getting better every day. Although she couldn't fall asleep at night, by taking plenty of naps during the day, she still remained awake and energetic when she talked to John. John really believed that his wife was being effectively "cured" by his "lock-down remedy". Every night, the female figure among the wallpaper patterns intrigued her. At first, the figure seemed to just aimlessly crawling on the wall. Later, it seemed like there was something significant about the way she moved. The next night, Charlotte noticed the woman was moving towards the window. She was slow and clumsy, but determinedly crawling towards the window. It took another two nights before the woman successfully reached the window, then she stopped. She remained by the window, not moving any further. Why did she stop? Charlotte was very puzzled. That woman is so vague that facial expressions were invisible. Only the head, the torso, and the limbs could be vaguely seen, and their movements were slow and confusing. No matter what, the fact that the woman stopped right by the window must mean she had something important to tell Charlotte. The woman couldn't speak, and couldn't communicate with facial expressions, either. The only possible way for Charlotte to decipher the puzzling figure was to look around right by the figure, and look for something which could potentially help with the escape. No saws, knifes, scissors alike could be found. She only found some thin, and narrow rectangular pieces of wood, which could be parts from some old furniture. Obviously these were too weak to break the bars. She spent the rest of the night wondering how these wood pieces could be of any help. Then the next night, the figured returned to the original position where she was spot the first time, and not moving anywhere anymore. This triggered even more puzzling. "Has the figure already offered help? Could the pieces of wood be keys to freedom?" Charlotte couldn't stop thinking about it. Everyone knew that having a creative mind is great, and that sometimes creativity could even come to the rescue, so did Charlotte. Now that the wood pieces themselves were not much help, she decided to transform them to something useful with her creativity. There were only two possible ways to get out of the window: 1. Break the bars (which was not possible at this point); 2. Tell people outside about her situation. She thought about the second option several days ago. Although yelling communication was not an option, written communication might be. The only way written communication would succeed was to send the message far enough, beyond the large garden, to the sidewalk so that it could be seen by people walking by. Suddenly, a creative idea came into Charlotte's mind: "Make a slingshot!" but how?

A piece of thin, long wood would definitely help! That was why the woman behind the wallpaper patterns tried so hard to give this hint! Now Charlotte needed to puncture some holes on the wood, and tie an elastic band on it. She just realized that she had all the tools she needed! Nice! The wood pieces were so thin that she could puncture with her pen. Then she could take a rubber band which she used to tie her hair. She carefully made the slingshot, and hided it under the beddings.

The next day, as usual, she stayed calmly in her room. After John left, she took out her hand-made slingshot. She wrote her message on a piece of paper, rolled it into a little ball, and waited by the window to see if anybody walks by. Then there came this old man, walking alone on the sidewalk, beyond the garden. Charlotte shot her paper ball to him, which ended up hitting him in the cheek. The old man looked around, and saw nobody, then kept walking. This was very disappointing, but Charlotte didn't give up. She made another paper ball with her message. Not long after the first "shot", a boy walked by. "Younger people have stronger curiosity, so this is a good sign! He'll be more than likely to pick up my paper ball and read it!" While thinking with excitement, Charlotte shot her paper ball to the boy, which hit a tree, then fell in front of the boy's feet. The boy picked it up, opened it, and read it with curiosity. Then he looked this way, towards the room, in which Charlotte was locked. Charlotte waved to him, and the boy saw her! The boy then run away. After a little while, a police car came to the house. Officers knocked the door. Jennie was completely shocked. She was standing there, speechless while the officers entered the house, rushed upstairs, and freed Charlotte. The police then arrested Jennie and John.

The police department launched a full-scale search in the city, from door to door to look for any such situations. This campaign freed more women being trapped.

Charlotte, having got freedom, founded an organization whose mission was to promote freedom, equal rights, equal opportunity, and anti-discrimination.


End file.
